


Take me to the finish line (no matter where)

by billspilledquill



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: F/M, Gen, Learning to trust, M/M, Slight haphephobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 16:30:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14597079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billspilledquill/pseuds/billspilledquill
Summary: Hamlet has never liked to be touched. Until he is, albeit (not) reluctantly so.





	Take me to the finish line (no matter where)

**Author's Note:**

> I love this shitty emo boy more than i care to admit really

 

Hamlet never liked being burned.

Burn by the touches, he assumed. He never liked being called away, inches away.

He knows, sometimes, when he was very, very young, that he was being traded and touched around the members of the court. What better use for a prince if not to compliment its rosy cheeks and angelic laughter? Those giggles, he thought. Maybe he was already faking it before he realized so.

His father had touched him once, patted him on the head. Father never smiled and his hand seemed to want to crush his skull beneath his huge palm. Nothing but air, he said, warningly, brain as empty as my court room jesters, son. Have you seen Laertes lately?

But father, Hamlet protested weakly, because he was too young to know that he shouldn’t say anything, nothing but trouble. But father, have you ever seen me do anything?

“Hamlet,” her mother says, sliding her arms around his father’s waist. She seems to be way too old to be his mother, sometimes. “Hamlet,” she repeats, and he realizes that she is talking to her husband. “Leave your son alone. You know how he is.”

And so his father stopped weighting his head as if he is considering to dig a hole and that it would reveal nothing but trouble, trouble, trouble. And he growled to her, rather fondly, and left the room, and Hamlet left too, his hand balled into fists.

“Mother,” he says, “you didn’t need to do this.”

Her mother touched him, there, right on the left shoulder. He suddenly wanted to cry, an acute sense of shame rose in him, and anger, a need to break something that can be himself. Something. She placed her other hand on his right.

Anyway, it hurt.

“You are tired,” she says, “go to sleep, son. Do you need company?”

He didn’t, no, he didn’t. His mother nodded, her dress trailing on the cold hard floor, and this image felt strangely intimate, like some fusion of objects, like she was an object of this majestical roof, a prison to her golden shoes. Hamlet distanced himself from being too harsh and kind into the affairs of judging politics.

Ophelia was here, somewhere. Hamlet searched, through his room, some remaining of her, a scent of willows, something scarce. His fingers stopped at an unread letter. From Wittenberg.

He looked at, trying to decipher the content inside. He knew who it was from. From Wittenberg.

And he shivers, feeling the soft flames raging beside him, the winter snow falling outside of the room. Nothing was quiet, and he thought, nothing is quiet from a deaf man, trying to make noise in his mind. He flips the letter over and over, and placed it next to the fire, knowing the words already.

Went like this: From Wittenberg. How are you, my lord? I am well. I hope you are well. Things are well. Etc. I miss you. I mean your lessons. I don’t mean to offense, my lord. My lord.

And Hamlet’s mind went like this: what if I call him here? Am I his lord more than I am from this place? How long does it take for him to come?

And: will my father mind if I kiss him in the snow? It’s Our Savior’s Birth. For His sake.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t send a letter, nor read one during his journey. Ophelia lost contact with him. She never touched him more than necessary, so she never showed her face, now, because her skin was soft and Hamlet didn’t want to touch, want to rely on poetry to know what it was like, to sleep, to dream in the same bed as another.

And he thought about Yorick, his plump fingers taking in his, wrapping around it like a father would, and that a father never would do in his presence. A prince, Yorick would say, is a father’s burden. They never behave like one.

And Hamlet, at that time, would giggle like he always do, and say, childishly: My father the King has always been a crowned king. No one taught him how to be a prince, and that’s unfair.

That’s why he died, he told Horatio when another year passed and news had reached them like it mattered more this than when his father was living and well and mortal. He died because he had never been a prince, and that death had reached him for the experience. He slumped his shoulders. Not that it matters being a prince in heaven or on earth, Horatio. Remember.

“My lord,” Horatio says, tentatively touched his arm, making Hamlet leaned in and shiver because he hated that, the feeling of someone sharing what he had to share, to give, and Hamlet pulled in and out from the vision, sensing the tears on his face that made him ugly and fiend-like.

“Hamlet,” he says, taking a step back.

“—My lord—“

“Please,” his voice broke midway and everything was just so stupid and insignificant compared to the hazy image of Horatio’s eyes through the tears, unblinking. “Hamlet.”

And then Horatio was taking a step back as well, and Hamlet felt powerless before a scholar and his words. Swords would play him better than these. “My lord, I’m sorry.”

“You are cruel,” Hamlet shook his head, the palpitations of the burning flames being the only thing that was not quiet. He says, mutters to himself until he finds the exit with unsteady footing, “A cruel, cruel man.”

He heard Horatio’s voice from the door, a whisper. Something about long live the king.

 

* * *

 

When Laertes touched him with the poisoned sword, he had smelled willows.

 

* * *

 

And he gave in, he thought when Horatio can’t but take his hand. He was his friend, so maybe he was allowed to feel safe somewhere in the arms of his. It was easy to feel threatened, because he felt so, so small and Horatio’s longs limbs covered him all, and Hamlet didn’t know, he swore he didn’t. He would be sorry if he did.

He trembled because he heard nothing, and songs should be sung at death, some elevation should be made. He recoiled into himself further, Horatio’s arms around him, and he was afraid that if Horatio was distracted, he might disappear. Horatio was a careless man, and would offer his life the roman way. So Hamlet gripped his hand hard, telling him that death is silence, silence, silence.

Horatio was a cruel man. Every bones inside spike up and shaken by the force of which he was held, like a prey freshly rescued, taken soundly to home. Cruel.

“I’m afraid,” he says, “tell me, why should I be afraid?”

He spoke in the tone of quiet confession, of some great last words to be made out of the man, from ashes. Horatio didn’t answer, and for a moment, Hamlet was sure that he was the dying one.

“I’m so afraid, Horatio,” he tries again, “are you afraid?”

He heard a yes, and he heard silence. A dead feast, feast of deaths. Hamlet nodded, knowing whatever songs there will be shall be sung by angels. Angel.

He looked at Horatio, and felt the curtains settling. He smiled, knowing that he could kiss him after stage. Will his father let them kiss in the snow?

“That makes two of us, then, my friend.”

 

 


End file.
